Where's the concern for the innocents killed by U.S. drones?

President Barack Obama, the Rev. M. Cristina Paglinauan and columnist Dan Rodricks all have expressed sorrow and outrage over the slaughter of innocent children in Newtown, Conn. ("Stand vigil for gun victims and new laws," Dec. 23). Yet their vocal concern is in stark contrast to their silence over all the children who have been murdered in Mr. Obama's drone attacks.

What applies to children murdered by a mentally ill gunman should also apply to those murdered by drone attacks in Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Two days after the Newtown shooting, nine children between the ages of 9 and 13 were killed by a cluster bomb in Afghanistan. So far, 178 children have been killed by U.S. drone strikes.

For these children there are no front-page headlines, no presidential tears, no celebrity videos, no pictures of tiny coffins and no candlelight vigil. Why? Is it because the children of Newtown have white skin and those murdered by U.S. drones have brown skin? Did those brown-skinned parents love their children any less than we love ours?

There is ultimately very little any society we can do to prevent deranged individuals from carrying out attacks similar to Newtown. But we can stop the slaughter of innocents carried out by our government.

In an attempt to generate support for their political agenda, gun control advocates have seized on the Newtown tragedy while deliberately ignoring the children's corpses that continue to pile up as a result of the Obama's administrations actions.

If the Reverend Paglinauan's candlelight vigil on the National Mall in Washington New Year's Eve is going to include candles for the children killed by the US government, I offer my praise and support. But if not, I offer nothing except disgust and revulsion at her hypocrisy.